cleaning up a lot of saw dust in Gaithersburg, MD

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Hey all, my name is Subala but I go by the handle 3rdKidney on this forum. I live in Gaithersburg, MD which is about 30 minutes out side of Washington, DC.

I'm very new to woodworking, less than a year. Right now my wife and I are building a nature retreat center on 20 acres of land in southern Virginia near the NC border. There we teach all aspects of natural health, alternative healing, organic gardening, yoga, hold workshops, classes etc. We also rent the center out for events like weddings, receptions, weekend retreats and the like.

I kind of stumbled into woodworking through finishing the interior of our main building down their. There was a lot of santos mahogany flooring left over from getting our 1200 sq ft yoga room done so I decided to use them to build and trim out counter tops, wood burning stove hearts, trim molding etc. Those projects led to me acquiring more tools and setting up a woodworking garage shop here in MD. So now I'm a 'handy man' 24/7 for our home here and the Center while I try to squeeze in woodworking projects when I can and funds allow. Other than that, retired from two previous careers.

This is my first woodworking forum and I'm excited about participating. I also welcome any other woodworkers in my neck of the woods to contact me. Maybe we can get together and make some saw dust.

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Welcome Subala! I'm not too horribly far away from you. I'm in Berkeley Springs, WV...about an hour and a half WNW of DC. Being "Mr Fixit" around our small family farm that we lived on in Spokane, WA a couple years ago is how I got my start in woodworking so I can definitely relate there.

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welcome im fairly new myself and i have found that the people here are frendly and helpfull i have had lots of question and almost always i have goten a response that if didnt answer my question at least lead me to the right path to get answers.

speaking of cleaning dust i spent couple hours yesterday with some kids from my school cleaning sweeping and cleaning the shop. we even moped it. the teacher that i work with hadent cleaned it in probably 5 years. god that was hard work.

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Wow duckisser, 5 hours cleaning dust! That's above and beyond. It also reminds me of a recent mistake I made. I've been hearing you guys warn against breathing the saw dust so for the past year or so, I've been suffering through using those little white dust masks. I had a respirator (3M 7505) on my shopping list, but kept delaying its purchase if favor of more sexy doo-dads for the shop. BIG MISTAKE. Now I'm working on a big kitchen cabinet project for my home and decided to buy the mask before cutting (and finishing) all that plywood. The difference in how much better I feel after a long cutting (and finishing) session is amazing. I should have bought this respirator a year ago. It's comfortable enough for me to wear for hours without taking it off, and because it exhausts down (as opposed to straight out or up) my breathing doesn't fog my glasses. Now I don't have to choose between seeing or breathing and I can even wear it while sweeping up and cleaning the filters on my vac.

I'm using an oil based polyurethane finish and don't smell a thing with the mask on. I forget this until I remove it at the end of my work session and get hit by the fumes. That success in safety has prompted me to buy the Grr-ripper to help move my fingers further aways from spinning blades. More on this later.

Hello! I am planning on making a 16"w x 8"h x 8"d chest for my fiance as a cute little gift. I am trying to give it an "8bit" look, with having different colors throughout the chest. I will attach a photo of what someone has done in the past. Basically these little tiles will make up the faces of the chest, then just have a border going on each side. How would I go about making these "tiles"? I have measured them to be 1/2" width and height, but the depth might need to be 1/2" or even 1/4". Is that too thin to cut without losing the quality of the shape cut? Let me know if I am not making any sense! Thanks!

Sounds like your trying to absorb the price of walnut for your customers. If they want a premium hardwood than you need to charge them premium prices. By buying commons to try and save money you are actually producing more waste and taking more time to figure out all your cuts.

If only it were that easy. Unfortunately, if i go to FAS walnut, that means my prices need to go up 50-60%, YIKES. Given that 60-70% of my work is in walnut, I depend on it being semi-affordable. Trust me, I love when people order cherry or maple, and I can go pull a 120" board off my rack that is clear from start to beginning. I can basically fall asleep throughout the milling process and the end product looks sweet. Not so easy with walnut. You see some of my stock. It requires some serious thinking and creativity to make money out of those boards. So far so good, but its a lot more effort on my end. Is 1com crap? Sometimes, but sometimes not. Gotta make lemonade out of lemons sometimes. I just wish those lemons were cheaper.